At the United Nations,
support for the rule of law has the aura of mom’s apple pie: Everybody loves
it. Unfortunately, consensus ends there. UN member states can’t agree on how to
define it, much less how to advance it globally. It’s unsurprising, then, that
last week’s “High-Level UN Meeting on the Rule of Law” (perhaps you missed it?)
was a bust. The meeting’s final declaration was a festival of empty blather,
even by UN standards. And that is a wasted opportunity. For as my friend and
colleague Mark Lagon points out in a just released policy innovation memorandum
from the Council on Foreign Relations, improving the rule of law worldwide may
be the critical step in improving prospects for human dignity and prosperity in
the twenty-first century. The lesson of
the last week is that this effort can’t be left to the United Nations.
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